glow, once in a rotation
by AlwaysPadfoot
Summary: Tangled!AU. Minerva dreams of seeing the lanterns.


**AN** : _CHASER 3: Peaky Blinders: Red Right Hand — Nick Cave The Bad Seed (Element: about a manipulator). 7. [Word] Rotation, 8. [Character] Minerva McGonagall, 12. [Creature] Niffler._

* * *

 **glow, once in a rotation**

 **AlwaysPadfoot**

* * *

On her eight birthday, Minerva sat in the window of her tower and looked out across the forest she had never set foot it.

Today was the day she first noticed the lanterns. There, on the horizon, were hundreds of coloured lights floating high in the night sky. Soft blues, bright pinks, and calming yellows spreading out across the darkened sky. It was beautiful; it was like nothing Minerva had ever seen before.

Her mother was brushing her long blonde hair and it was only when Minerva stopped singing their song that mother noticed her attention was elsewhere.

"Minerva," she scolded.

"Mother, what are all those lights?" Minerva asked, pointing out through the open window.

"Years ago the King and Queen of this kingdom gave birth to a Princess, who then disappeared," her mother explained. "They release the sky lanterns in hope that one day their daughter will return. Now, enough of the lanterns, sit still Minerva and sing with me."

"Yes, Mother."

Minerva sighed, and with the lanterns shimmering in the corner of her eyes, she and her mother began to sing, and Minerva's hair began to glow.

Every year, Minerva watched the sky lanterns fill the darkness on the evening of her birthday.

They never got caught on the wind and made it as far as the tower. They just floated, high above a Kingdom that Minerva had never once visited, beautiful, but not close enough. She wanted to go; she wanted to travel into the heart of the Kingdom and watch as the sky lanterns were lit.

In the month preceding her sixteenth birthday, Minerva decided that she would ask if, to celebrate, her and her mother might visit the kingdom.

Sure that her mother would say yes, a week before Minerva's birthday, she woke up so excited she could barely contain herself. She had time to bake, to read, and to drink five particularly sugary teas. She felt extremely confident. She was even sure that Albus, a small creature with a lust for shiny objects, was fed up with her by the time ten am came around. Her mood perked yet again as she spotted her mother heading up the pathway towards the tower. She had a basket cradled in her left arm, the top decorated with wildflowers from the forest path like it always was. Her mother stopped at the bottom of the tower and called up to the window.

"Minerva," she said, "Minerva, let down your hair."

Minerva nearly tripped over it in her excitement to follow her mother's orders. She gathered up her copious amounts of blonde locks and tossed them down to her waiting mother. She watched it unravel, rotating downwards. Feeling the tug as her mother climbed the tower to join her, Minerva practiced what she was going to say in her head for what felt like the hundredth time.

Only, the moment her mother set foot on the wooden floor beneath their feet, she spoke before Minerva could even open her mouth.

"Honestly, Minerva. You could have tidied up in here," she said, eying of pile of precariously stacked books, and pushing the basket into Minerva's hands. "It's like I've taught you nothing."

"Mother—"

"Oh, well, something smells nice at least," she continued, crossing the room to where Minerva had laid freshly baked buns on the table. Mother selected one and held in between two fingers. "A little overdone, but a good effort I suppose."

Pressing her lips together, Minerva set the basket down on the table, ignoring the fact that Albus was glowering at her mother from underneath the chest of drawers. For some reason the furry flat footed creature did not seem to like her mother one bit. He always hid away when she came. It was probably for the best — mother would only claim he was disease-infested, or something like that.

"Come, Minerva. Let me brush your hair and then we shall eat the food I have brought."

"Mother, can I just—"

"Ah, ah."

Minerva huffed. She was impatient to ask the question she'd been burning to ask for months now, but she knew her mother was nothing if not persistent. Crossing to her, she sat down and as mother took a brush to her hair, Minerva sang. The tempo was faster than usual, her eyes closed. Minerva didn't even notice her mother saying her name until there was a ' _poof_ ' of magic which made her skin tingle.

"Minerva," she said indignantly. "What on earth is wrong with you today?"

This was her chance. She twisted in her seat to see her mother was frowning at her, attempting to flatten her own flyaway hair.

"Mother," Minerva said. "I want to go to the kingdom and see the lanterns."

Minerva still remembered how her mother had laughed. How she had thought she had been joking about going to see the lanterns. When it had become evident that Minerva was serious, mother had bristled.

 _Goodness, Minerva. Are you mad? People out there will target you — exploit your gifts._

Arguing had failed. Minerva was no closer to seeing the lanterns in all their glory, but she found herself agreeing with her mother's reasoning. After all, that was why she was here in this tower. For her own protection. The properties that her blonde locks had were unexplainable, magical. When Minerva asked questions, mother changed the subject — for her own good.

And so Minerva watched the lanterns from afar again on her sixteenth birthday. With Albus curled up in her lap, draping himself in the lose strands of her shimmering hair, Minerva felt hard done by.

Singing, in a low whisper, Minerva's eyes didn't leave the beautifully lit horizon. "Lanterns gleam and glow; let your colours shine. Make the clock reverse, one day you will be mine. You will be mine."

Maybe she could have argued harder, better. Or perhaps Mother was right, maybe the world would use her and her magic without batting an eyelid. As her mother always proclaimed: Mother knows best. Yes, Minerva was safe, but the thought that she would have to remain in this tower for the rest of her life was ahborant.

She would have to be stronger. She would have to be able to fight off any evil. If Minerva could prove to her mother she could do that, then in the earth's rotation, the kingdom's skies would be illuminated above her. She would see the lanterns, perhaps even add her own to the sky and watch it soar up into the clouds. She wanted that — just for one night.

No one would would exploit her; her mother would see that.


End file.
